Arizona State University sponsors student's study on why we choose certain products over others

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - A research study at Arizona State University is diving into the psychology of why someone uses one product over another.

Freeman Wu, a student at ASU, and his associate professor, Adriana Samper, are in charge of the study.

"What we did, we got participants to come in and either assign them to eat fancy rose shaped cupcake or a plain cupcake that was smooth across the top," said Wu.

The participants thought they were there to watch a short video.

They were told they could eat as many cupcakes as they wanted while they watched.

"What we found was that people who were less motivated to eat, like people were hungry, presumably they would have eaten the most. They actually ate less of the beautiful rose shaped cupcake to the lower aesthetic shaped cupcake, as well they also enjoyed it less," said Wu.

"Intuitively, it was something that we felt, when you buy this cupcake, you hesitate. You don't want to destroy the beauty and effort that went into it,"

Their research showed the same came to plain napkins versus decorated ones.

People used less of the fancier ones.

Same for toilet paper. Their research showed people used twice as less toilet paper when it was decorated.

They say this information used by companies to be more earth friendly with their packaging.